Even defense hawks are pessimistic about DoD 2015 request for extra funds

Jared Serbu reports.

In the fiscal 2015 budget request, Defense Department officials said they needed
$26 billion more than what current law allows, and $115 billion more in the
following four years, in order to adequately perform their missions.

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said
bluntly Thursday that, much to his chagrin, that's not going to happen.

Both of those requested plus-ups would go beyond the Defense spending limits
lawmakers agreed to in the Ryan-Murray
budget agreement only four months ago.

For 2015, the $26 billion plus-up is DoD's share of the Opportunity, Security and
Growth Initiative the Obama administration proposed as a mechanism to bypass the
budget caps. The White House says it will release full details next week on
offsetting spending reductions to pay for the package, but officials have not yet
said where the money would come from in 2016 through 2019.

But McKeon, one of Capitol Hill's staunchest advocates for robust defense budgets,
opened his committee's hearing of DoD's most senior officials by saying it's time
to come to grips with the fact that Congress is not inclined to agree to any
additional discretionary spending, whether for defense or domestic programs.

"We're basically going to have the number that was agreed to earlier and signed
into law, so I'm really not paying much attention to the $115 billion, and I'm not
paying much attention to that $58 billion, because I think that's in the realm of
it would be wonderful, but it's not going to happen," he said. "I think we really
have to live within something that I hate, and I'm sure you do, and I think most
of the members of the committee do, but it is the law, and we're stuck with it
right now."

Extra funding still not enough

Defense officials say even though the Ryan-Murray agreement did a lot to help
solve DoD's budget problems in 2014, the caps in current law over the next five
years are simply too low.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said they would result in
an Army and Marine Corps that are too small to conduct their missions, and
training and equipping shortfalls across the military services.

"Our budget proposal supports our Defense strategy, defends this country and keeps
our commitments to our people. However, these commitments would be seriously
jeopardized by a return to sequestration level spending," he said. "The result
would be a military that could not fulfill its defense strategy, putting at risk
America's traditional role as guarantor of global security and, ultimately, our
own security. This is not the military the President nor I wants, it isn't the
military that this committee or this Congress wants for America's future, but it
is the path we are on unless Congress does something to change the law."

Under the budget DoD proposed this week, the department would get $496 billion for
its base budget. Even if Congress agreed to the extra $26 billion beyond that, the
final tally would still be $19 billion lower than what the Obama administration
projected DoD would need for 2015 as of a year ago.

If McKeon is right, and Congress is on a path to keep the spending caps in place,
the department faces an additional problem. In order to make its numbers work, the
Pentagon is betting that Congress will green light a package of $96 billion in politically difficult cost saving measures, including health
insurance reforms, weapons systems cancellations and base closures, plus another
$30 billion worth of reductions in personnel spending.

But as Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the Armed Services
Committee, pointed out Thursday, Congress has shown through past performance that
it is very likely to reject a significant proportion of those cutbacks.

"The important thing is going to be how this body chooses to approach what you
guys have already approached," Smith told the Pentagon witnesses. "You've had to
put together a budget based on that top line law of the land that's not going to
change. You haven't had the luxury of the fantasy that we all have, to imagine
that somehow, we can oppose every cut, offer no alternative cuts, and complain
about the size of the budget. You've made the decision on the A-10, you've made
the decision on force structure, on mothballing 11 cruisers, on a lot of
compensation issues, which are politically unpopular, and I hope, though I doubt
this will be the case, that we don't just beat you up over every isolated one of
those decisions. But to simply say the administration is fecklessly cutting the
budget and not offer an alternative is really going to spin us into the ground."